Reform: Calling Rhee (Biography) Out

Nearly everybody seems to like Richard Whitmire, the former USA Today editorial writer and EWA president whose biography of Michelle Rhee is just out this month, but Richard Kahlenberg of the Century Foundation says that the book has some serious problems (Waiting for Superwoman). And no, his focus is not just on economic integration.  Writing in Slate, the gist of Kahlenberg's critique is that Whitmire (and the rest of the national media) are so enamored of the Rhee fairy tale that they fail to scrutinize the basic usefulness of her top-down, confrontational strategy and the true measure of her accomplishments as head of the DC public schools. Journalists fall for their subjects all the time -- think Jay Mathews (KIPP) and Paul Tough (Harlem Children's Zone).  But Rhee is at the tip of the current school reform spear and Kahlenberg is doing a service by standing up and raising some worthwhile questions about whether Rhee's strategy works and what she did and didn't accomplish in DC.  

Comments

[bicicletas estáticas]

Has anyone read the book? Please give us your opinion.

[Alexander Russo]

whitmire's response is here -- a little testy at places, i thought:
http://thebeeeater.com/wordpress/?p=394

not that there's anything wrong with that.

[richard]

I'm intensely interested in the opinion of anyone who has done actual reporting on actual schools in D.C. I'm looking for anyone who can explain why low income African American students in D.C. are as much as two years behind like-students in several other urban districts. Please, prove my theory -- ineffective teaching -- wrong.

But if you haven't done the shoe leather reporting to back up your claims, you will hear a challenge back from me. This posting was not balanced, and the Slate piece never answered the core question of the book -- which is hard to miss, given that it's repeated in almost every chapter.

Here's a review of the book by a Washington Post reporter who has actually done some of that reporting: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/02/13/AR2011021302656.html

[Jeff]

After just watching Waiting for Superman, I am skeptical about anyone who suggests that they have all the answers or a universal cure all, although Ms. Rhee has at the very least, a strategy and vision and is willing to put herself in the firing line. I am going to purchase a copy, after I complete my current course and have the time to really evaluate her approach and management strategy. I would argue that prior to reviewing the book, we do not need one Superwoman, we need Superwomen or Supermen for that matter who can all come together because the issues surrounding our educational system are not going to be solved by one person, the system (political) I do not believe will allow this to occur as everyone has to have their say and be recognized for their contribution.

[CarolineSF]

I'd better name no names rather than risk invoking Godwin's law, but I'll just say that big-name despots, petty dictators and just plain fools throughout history have had "a strategy and a vision."

The notion that "trying something -- anything -- is better than doing nothing" is a pretty questionable one for so many intelligent-seeming people to buy into it.

And mind you, I and other challengers of the reformy orthodoxy are NOT espousing doing nothing. But think of the concept "First, do no harm." Clearly Hippocrates (who used that concept, not in those words) did not agree that "trying something -- anything -- is better than doing nothing."